Obama to talk taxes — and jobs — on Friday

By JENNIFER EPSTEIN

08/02/2012 06:31 PM EDT

President Obama will again urge Congress to pass an extension of middle class tax cuts on Friday morning, also giving him an opportunity to weigh in on the July jobs numbers, due out earlier in the day.

The president is set to speak at 11:45 a.m. ET from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and will be joined by people who would benefit from an extension of the tax cut, senior advisor David Plouffe said in an email to supporters.

"As dysfunctional as Washington can be, this fight is far from hopeless. We saw that last week when Republicans and Democrats in the Senate agreed to allow a vote on extending the middle-class tax cuts, and the legislation passed. Now the House needs to follow the Senate's lead and vote to ensure taxes don't go up on the middle class," Plouffe says.

But the event is also a chance for Obama to what he always does on the first Friday of the month, a White House aide confirmed: comment on the Labor Department's latest July jobs numbers. The rate stayed flat from May to June at 8.2 percent, with a gain of 80,000 jobs on nonfarm payrolls, adding to a several-month span of disappointing numbers for the administration.

From Washington to Main Street and Wall Street -- not to mention Obama and Romney campaign headquarters in Chicago and Boston -- eyes are on whether the slugishness will continue or be supplanted by bigger gains.

The numbers could turn out to be better. ADP, which has in recent months not been very accurate in predicting jobs numbers, said Wednesday that American businesses added 163,000 jobs in July.